The threat from CPD abuse is persistent and deaths involving CPDs outnumber those involving heroin and cocaine combined. The economic cost of nonmedical use of prescription opioids alone in the United States totals more than $53 billion annually. Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), street gangs, and other criminal groups, seeing the...

The 2013 National Drug Threat Assessment (NDTA) Summary addresses emerging developments related to the trafficking and use of primary illicit substances of abuse and the nonmedical use of controlled prescription drugs (CPDs). In the preparation of this report, DEA intelligence analysts considered quantitative data from various sources (seizures, investigations, arrests...